I still think a lot about my dalish Inky Eurydice who is kind of the opinion of 'yeah fuck the Arlathan empire I'm Dalish.' because they didn't name themselves for Arlathan, they named themselves for the struggle of the people of the Dales and that's part of what frustrates her so much about Solas in spite of having largely gotten along with him very well and even seeing him as something of mentor figure as someone fascinated with history.
Yeah, she's not one of his people but he's also not one of hers. She recognizes city elves as cousins, sharers of the Dalish struggle in a way that with the knowledge she now has will never apply to Solas because he is the heir to the struggle of Arlathan. Those aren't her people, her ancestors perhaps but not her people. What they lost was never a possibility of hers, not like the way the Dales are.
With the power that being Inquisitor gives her she can see a possibility for an established settlement for the Dalish. Perhaps not like a human settlement, because they're a nomadic people and many may still remain as much--Yet a land for them to roam freely and without fear feels like a very real possibility to her, certainly something worth using this debt she feels owed from having saved the world.
She doesn't want a new empire, she doesn't want immortality or magic for every elf. She wants peace, she wants stability, she wants a place to call home even if home is still guided by a Keeper and ridden through on an aravel. She wants a life for her daughter free of the same struggle she has lived but still rich with the culture she loves. Frankly, she doesn't care that the stories they tell have drifted so far, that's what stories do when the ones telling them aren't so long-lived that they witnessed every one of them themselves. Words change, language evolves, things drift and that's not so bad of a thing because to change is to survive. To remain stagnant is to die, and Solas must understand that, he fought for change once.
Fought against gods who he believed would destroy the world. That he does not fault this world's inhabitants for doing the same is a poor consolation when he still intends on dooming so many of them.
